At the present moment, the instruments available to teachers are not the best possible means for teaching the theory of music, because many of the basic concepts of music cannot be easily illustrated with their aid. Such are the position of semitones in the structures of the various scales, the circle of fifths, the position of key signatures, etc. The volume of the note produced is also of central importance in the teaching of music.
Guido of Arezzo was a musical theoretician and pedagogue who lived in Italy in the Middle Ages (about 990-1030). He utilized the human hand to illustrate basic concepts of musical theory and theoretical systems that are difficult to grasp. In Guido's hand, the notes of a scale are projected onto the structure of the fingers.
It is not worth adapting Guido of Arezzo's system as such to the present-day teaching of musical theory, for, among other reasons, in the Middle Ages the so-called hexachord system was used in place of the present-day note system (with six notes in the scale instead of the present seven notes).
U.S. Pat. No. 7,381,884 B1 discloses a glove, in which sensors in the thumb and other fingers are arranged to produce tone signals. The sensors are at the tips and joints of the fingers, as well as in the area of the palm. The sensors detect both contact and joint angle, thus allowing the production of a great number of different notes. The strength and duration of the contact are registered digitally. The more detailed technology of the sensors is not disclosed.
U.S. Pat. No. 7,842,879 B1 discloses a glove, in which there are contact-sensitive sensors particularly at the finger tips, for example, piezo-electrodes, for producing signals by pressing the tip of the finger against a base.
Japanese application publication JP 11-15469 discloses several different sensor assemblies fitted to a glove, combined with a sound generator. Gloves according to the publication are used to stimulate the activity of the fingers when rehabilitating a patient. In several models, the thumb is pressed against some other selected finger. In the glove of FIG. 2, there are also touch sensors on the knuckle side, which are operated by the fingers of the other hand.
The electronic recording of conventional music is based on so-called MIDI coding, when the information of a composition can be recorded in a compressed form. Indeed, the concept MIDI refers to an interface and manner of coding between a musical device and a computer. Many electronic musical instruments produce MIDI data for further processing by a computer.
The known solutions described above are either not suitable at all, or poorly suited to teaching musical theory. The publications do not disclose a musical-scale format in a glove. There has been a demand for a glove application having an illustrative arrangement regarding music theory, particularly the notes of scale and optionally other features.